Rabat – Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has renewed his country’s hostile position challenging Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over Western Sahara.
“We will not let go of the Sahrawi cause, whatever the cost,” President Tebboune said in a speech delivered at the opening of the government-governors meeting on Thursday.
‘It’s up to the Sahrawis to decide’
Sahrawis “must decide what they want to be,” Tebboune said, hinting at his country’s support for a self-determination referendum in the region.
“Whether they should be Moroccans or Mauritanians, it’s up to the Sahrawis themselves to decide. In any case, they will not be Algerians,” he added.
The remarks come amid escalating tensions between Rabat and Algiers.
Earlier this month, Algeria stirred debate with its decision to deprive Morocco’s team of the right to take part in the ongoing African Nations Championship (CHAN).
After rejecting Morocco’s request to have its team fly directly to the Algerian city of Constantine onboard a Royal Air Maroc flight, Algerian authorities decided to add insult to injury by politicizing the CHAN opening ceremony.
The Algerian regime used the launching ceremony of the continental sporting event to broadcast its commitment to the separatist Polisario Front’s “independence war” in Morocco’s southern provinces.
In particular, they invited Nelson Mandela’s grandson Zwelivelile Mandela to deliver a scathing speech that challenged Morocco’s territorial integrity by presenting the country’s southern provinces as “the last colony in Africa.”
The politicization of the event sparked a row among watchers of African football, with many commenters saying the act was offensive and inappropriate and urging the governing bodies of world and African football to punish Algeria.
Tebboune’s remarks about the situation of the Sahrawis stand in striking contrast to statements by leading former Polisario members, who have maintained that Sahrawis make up as little as 20% of Tindouf population.
Concerning situation in Tindouf
Tindouf is a desert town in the extreme southwest of Algeria.
Hamada El Bihi, a former Polisario member opened up about the situation under which Sahrawis live in the Tindouf, emphasizing that over 80% of the population in the camps is composed of Tuareg people, hailing from countries across the Sahara desert, including Niger, Chad, Mali, Algeria, and Libya.
Mustafa Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud, a former Polisario police chief, also confirmed the same figures, stressing that Sahrawis make 20% of the total population.
Algeria and the Polisario Front have over the years rejected the UN’s and NGOs’ requests for a census in the camps, dismissing mounting concerns over the deteriorating living conditions in the Polisario-run camps.
The Tindouf camps are the only refugee camps in the world UN agencies have been prevented from conducting a census, one of the core functions of the UNHCR.
UNHCR data estimates the population in Tindouf at 90,000.
The 2022 UN Secretary General’s report on the situation in Western Sahara stressed the ongoing food crisis and diseases Sahrawis in the camps are subject to due to malnutrition.
“The refugees were at risk of serious food insecurity and malnutrition,” the UN report said.
The report reiterated the international community’s concerns about the situation of Sahrawis amid Algeria’s reluctance to shoulder its responsibility in the territorial dispute.
Meanwhile, many reports have over the past decade linked the distressing situation in the camps to Algeria and the Polisario Front’s constant embezzlement of international humanitarian aid meant for refugees.
One of the well-documented cases of said fraud was cited in the report of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in 2015.
The report exposed the embezzlement of aid between 2003 and 2017, showing that Polisario’s leadership was directly involved in selling Tindouf’s humanitarian aid in Mauritania and sub-Saharan markets under Algeria’s watch.
Over the past years, viral reports and videos have also documented and condemned Algeria and Polisario’s involvement in militarizing underage children in the Tindouf camps.
